


Given and Denied

by Syphrosine



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, This fandom needs help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3496196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syphrosine/pseuds/Syphrosine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It hurt. Everything hurt, really, but the warmth of her hands on his skin helped ground the moment in reality—his fitful dreams and forced visions had been as shot through with pain as the waking torture. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>He hadn't dreamt of Hera once. He hadn't dared.</i>
</p><p>(Yet another post-finale fic.) The escape from Mustafar was the easy part. For Kanan, picking up the pieces and dealing with their new rebel allies is much harder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> This started as just a oneshot, a little self-indulgent piece to work through my Kanan and Hera feels. It may remain that way, but I'm guessing I'll end up covering the first week after Kanan's rescue.

Kanan held it together long enough for Fulcrum—Ahsoka—he was too drained to process that right now—to brief them on the immediate plan: several short jumps to throw off any pursuit, and then rendezvous at an abandoned Clone Wars base on Ferth. There was more, but her voice and Hera's began blending together in the small portion of his brain that retained the energy to listen.

The adrenaline from his duel had burned hot and fast, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion nearly indistinguishable from the constant, low-grade pain that persisted for several hours after an interrogation. His muscles quivered, only partly from fatigue—the Inquisitor, whether out of frustration or sadism, had turned to the shock frame after nearly every question, to the point where Kanan had flinched reflexively every time his hand strayed to the switch. 

It had taken the Inquisitor a few sessions fiddling with dials to find the optimal setting for reducing the recovery time needed between shocks. His teeth ached with the memory of current pulsing through him, each burst a full body punch he could never curl into. He could still smell the crackle of electricity, like the faint ozone of recycled air on a ship, only stronger, sharper. 

He stared into the cup of water that had been pushed into his hands at some point, watching the surface ripple under the shaking of his hands. It tasted flat and tinny.

Kanan set the cup down and closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them, the conversation was somehow over, and Hera's eyes were on him, bright with concern. Fulcrum's—Ahsoka's—expression was sympathetic but reserved. There was a question there, a reluctant suspicion.

He'd been in Imperial hands for—he wasn't sure. More than a week. Not much more than two, though he wasn't certain. Time hadn't flowed so much as moved in slips and bursts between pain and exhaustion thick enough it had been an effort to remember his name sometimes. The cell lighting had cycled randomly between light and dark, intentionally erratic. When he had managed to sleep, it had been fitful, in short intervals, with anything longer purposefully interrupted. 

Even using mealtimes as a reference would've been useless. They hadn't withheld food, but like the lighting cycles designed to keep him off balance, there was no discernible pattern to it. After particularly brutal interrogation sessions, he was sedated instead, and would wake to an IV line in his arm and a medical droid hovering by his side.

They'd taken pains to keep him healthy. Not just alive. Healthy. He'd heard whispers about Mustafar, and that had been more chilling than any promise of death.

But their focus had been on whatever intel they suspected he might hold, especially regarding Fulcrum. 

You couldn't betray what you didn't know: he and Hera had agreed long ago that she would be their sole point of contact for that very reason. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. He'd picked up on enough, without even meaning to, in the years since. Common meeting sites, supply drops, secondary contacts. He'd known—guessed—there were other rebel cells, and he had a rough idea of where at least two of them were likely based.

He wasn't stupid. The only way the rebel ships could have arrived in time to cover their escape was if they'd already been within a jump of Mustafar, planning an extraction of their own. The broadcast from Lothal had been Ezra's voice, and Ezra's words, not his. And Jedi or not, Kanan was hardly indispensable. Certainly not worth the magnitude of risk his crew and the larger rebellion had taken.

He could only guess that they'd been worried about what he might reveal after all, and now Fulcrum wanted to know if he'd cracked. Kanan swallowed, freshly nauseous when he considered how close it might have come. Another week. Another day. Today had been—

_Tell me, Jedi. How did you survive Order 66?_ He could sense the Inquisitor beside him, yellow eyes sharp and calculating, measuring the sting of each word. Could feel his own rising horror as he leaned in, speaking as if he knew, as if he'd seen—

"Kanan." Hera's hand on his arm was gentle, but he tensed, inhaling sharply as instinct took over and he braced for another pulse of electricity. "Kanan?"

He released a shaky breath, dragging himself back to the present. The gloom of the interrogation cell, shadowed grays and blinking red lights, melted into the familiar interior of the _Ghost_. 

"Sorry." His voice felt rough in his throat. He'd accepted rather quickly that it was better to scream than waste energy trying to hold back. "I'm a little—tired."

"My quarters?"

He focused on her, and realized that Ahsoka was gone. So were Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb, led away earlier by two of their new compatriots. He nodded, letting himself sway at last, because this was Hera; he didn't have to pretend anymore. She was at his side in an instant, slinging his arm over her shoulder, and he leaned into her, content to draw on her strength for the slow walk to her quarters.

Hera helped him out of his shoulder guard, gaze distant and lips compressed into a frown. Her final tug tore an involuntary hiss of pain from him, and her fingers tightened around the guard for a moment before she set it aside. Her eyes turned questioning, and when he nodded, she began to gently ease his shirt off. 

It hurt. Everything hurt, really, but the warmth of her hands on his skin helped ground the moment in reality—his fitful dreams and forced visions had been as shot through with pain as the waking torture. He hadn't dreamt of Hera once. He hadn't dared.

His bare skin was clammy and streaked with dried perspiration, and the Ghost's cooler ambient temperature gave rise to goosebumps. He'd gladly kill for a hot shower. The Empire had somehow managed to incorporate even hygiene into the torture routine—every so often, he'd be taken to different room after an interrogation session and blasted by cold jets of water, hard enough to bruise, and then left shivering to dry in his cell.

Slowly, gingerly, he lowered himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. His boots were next. Then his pants. He found the energy somewhere for a smile as Hera wadded them up and tossed them into one corner. "Not gonna buy me dinner first?"

Hera's laugh was shaky, but it chased some of that misery from her eyes. She bent over him, sweeping strands of loose hair out of the way, and pressed her lips to his forehead, hands cupped lightly on either cheek. His eyelids fluttered shut as he leaned into that touch, some tiny corner of his mind insisting that this couldn't be real. More convincing was the argument that his dreams aboard Tarkin's ship had never been this kind.

Hera's thumbs stroked along his cheeks, across his cheekbones, and she kissed the bridge of his nose. Then her lips brushed against his for just a moment, the touch achingly soft. He murmured a wordless protest when she pulled back, and opened his eyes to find her staring at him, as though memorizing every last detail of his face.

"You were gone," she said, the curl of her fingers on his face tightening briefly. "I had to convince myself you were gone."

The part of him that was permanently tuned to Hera felt the echoes of her regret and self-recrimination in the Force. He closed his hands over hers, willing them to be steady for just a few seconds. "That's what we agreed."

"I lied." 

Her stare dared him to call her on it, but it would have been pure hypocrisy. When Kanan had dragged that promise from her, he'd done so knowing she'd at least try to honor it. He'd never harbored any illusions he'd hold up his end. He'd already lived through losing everything once.

_Run._

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She kissed him one last time, and then pulled her hands free. "Are you hungry?"

If he was, it was so far down the list of his body's immediate priorities it didn't even register. "No. Just tired."

"Bath?" 

Sponge bath, she meant. He nodded, gratitude lumping into a knot at his throat. It wasn't a hot shower, but he desperately wanted the scent and the feel of that room, that metal frame, off him.

Hera disappeared into the corridor and returned a few minutes later with a steaming bucket and a pile of neatly-folded towels. She dipped a towel into the hot water and then brought it to his neck. The fabric was coarse against his skin, but the sensation—and the heat—felt soothing.

The towel stilled when she reached his shoulders. "Tell me if I hurt you." 

He followed her gaze to the dark, angry patterns of bruising spread across his body. The extent and range of coloring was impressive, he thought, in a detached kind of way. The physical torture had been mostly limited to the shock frame, so the worst of it was where the restraints had held him—wrists, forearms, abdomen, shins.

"Hey." He waited until she pulled her stare away from the bruises and back to his face. He smiled, trying for reassuring and not sure quite where he'd landed to put that glimmer of helpless fury in her eyes. "I'll be okay."

"You're certain the Inquisitor's dead?" she said darkly.

He thought back to that moment, twin blades crossed in front of the Inquisitor's throat. For a few seconds, he'd wanted nothing more than to complete the motion. He'd failed his master and his padawan, and in that instant couldn't think of a single reason not to. He still wasn't sure what had held him back.

_There are some things far more frightening than death._

Kanan released a shaky breath. "Yeah. He's dead."

"I'll have to settle for killing Tarkin, then, if he managed to make it off his ship." Hera dragged the towel, infinitely gentle, over one wrist. It was such a mess of blue and red and purple that he marveled that he'd been able to even grip a lightsaber earlier, let alone hold his own—and then some—against a fresh opponent.

The stroke of damp cloth on skin was rhythmic, almost lulling, even when it glided over the more tender bruises. His eyes drooped shut a few times, and every time he pulled himself back to awareness, fresh adrenaline shot through him. The Inquisitor had liked to strike in those moments of increased vulnerability, when exhaustion stripped his defenses down to a thin barrier.

_Do you really believe these foolish displays of defiance will change anything? Your rebels can't run forever. The Empire will hunt them down, with or without your cooperation. And you **will** cooperate._

"Done," Hera announced, jolting him once more into a state of semi-wakefulness. 

He was cold now, but that clammy, sticky feeling was gone, and he felt almost human again. With only minimal assistance, he slipped on the pair of loose pants he liked to sleep in, and Hera helped him into bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, the fatigue he'd been battling long before Ezra had arrived in his cell began washing over him in stronger and stronger waves. 

Hera smoothed his hair back and pulled the blanket over him. "Do you need anything? Water?" She glanced at the ceiling. "Light? Or dark?"

Bright like his cell, when they tried to keep him from sleep? Or dark like the interrogation chamber, with the Inquisitor circling, leaning close at the smallest glimmer of weakness? At this point, Sabine could set off an entire pyrotechnics show in the room, and he suspected he'd still be asleep in seconds.

"Dim," he said finally, and Hera adjusted the lights accordingly.

Stay, he wanted to plead. But they'd somehow earned their way into the greater rebellion, and he knew that Hera was swimming in questions right now. He would be too, if he had the energy.

"Sleep," she whispered, dropping a kiss near his temple. "I'll join you as soon as the briefing's over."

"They're going to have questions for me," he murmured. What had the Empire asked him? What had he told them?

"It can wait," Hera said in a tone that brooked no arguments. "You're going to sleep, and then you're not leaving my sight for the next week."

"I can deal with that." He tilted his head to face her, letting his eyes rove over the soft curve of her smile and the determined furrow in her brow. Somehow, this was real.

He rested his eyes for a moment, and she was gone. Some ember of stubbornness the Empire hadn't managed to stamp out of him kept him awake for a few minutes longer waiting for her return, but it was a losing battle. Eventually, his eyelids drifted shut again.

It was perhaps a testament to his utter exhaustion that his sleep the first night was entirely uninterrupted by nightmares.


	2. Greet the Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Over these last weeks, she'd weighed eight years of devotion to a cause she held above everything—and discovered there was something she valued more. There was no universe where she piloted the Ghost and ran missions for Fulcrum while Kanan screamed his throat raw in Imperial custody._

For the first time in nearly three weeks, Hera woke to the familiar warmth of another body beside her. Kanan was curled on his side, face mere inches from hers, back pressed up against the wall. It wasn't his usual sprawl—sharing her bed with someone as long-limbed as Kanan was usually only possible because the marginally larger captain's quarters allowed for a wider bed.

Trying to keep as still as possible, Hera checked her chrono. 0700 ship time, now that they were synced with the other rebel ships. She hadn't made it back to the _Ghost_ until 0100, several hours later than she'd intended, but she'd been relieved to find Kanan unconscious to the world. Sheer, stubborn will had kept him on his feet up to that point, but he'd clearly been on his last, wobbling legs of even that.

She studied his face as he slept on. Stubble dotted his jaw, maybe two days' worth, which was—odd. It meant the Imperials had actually bothered to shave him. One of Fulcrum's allies, a former ISB intelligence officer named Delpha Leske, had spent a half hour reviewing standard Imperial interrogation tactics with her. Sleep deprivation and distorting a prisoner's perception of time were common practice. 

For a human male, beard growth was its own biological watch, so Hera could only guess the Imperials had been thorough enough to remove even that subtle tell.

She refused to consider the other possibility, other than to acknowledge that their rebel allies almost certainly would.

Even in sleep, there was tension in Kanan's brow, in the corners of his mouth. Hera had to restrain herself from reaching out a hand to smooth it away. Neither of them were free of nightmares, but they seemed to strike Kanan harder and more often. She knew sleep wouldn't come so easily for him later. She didn't dare risk it now.

Her gaze traveled further down his body, where the blanket covered the ugly stripes and patches of bruising she'd seen earlier. Leske had mentioned interrogation droids as a likely opening tactic, but mind probes didn't leave those kinds of marks. The more regular pattern around his wrists suggested binders or restraints. Same with the bruising on his forearms, shins, and abdomen.

Hera didn't want to think about how hard Kanan must have strained against his bonds to leave such deep marks. Or what they had done to him to warrant that kind of desperate struggle.

Eighteen days. From capture to rescue, that was how long the Empire had been able to turn its considerable resources to breaking a single man. She could recall the timeline without hesitation, because it had been in the back of her mind, like a ticking countdown, since she'd been forced to leave Kanan behind on Lothal to an Empire they were about to make very angry.

Two days laying low in the immediate aftermath of Kanan's capture and Ezra's broadcast, while probe droids furiously scanned all the major cities and settlements. Two more days trying and failing to secure any kind of intel about where they were holding Kanan, or whether he was even alive. 

_Can't you tell?_ she'd asked Ezra, trying to sound gentle rather than plaintive. But even though she wasn't a Jedi, she knew that Kanan was very good at closing himself off when necessary. 

Then Fulcrum's reprimand. Remember the larger mission. Forget about Kanan. Stay off the radar.

One day lost as she agonized over her decision and made the necessary arrangements to set course for the planet Fulcrum had suggested. She'd been relieved, more than anything, when the kids wrangled together their plan. However unhappy she was with the prospect of owing Visago a favor, it had been worth it.

Two days waiting impatiently for the next courier droid transfer so they could intercept and send Chopper. Another day decrypting and parsing the data. Four days to plan and prep for a five-person attack on a star destroyer in a star system crawling with Imps, including stealing an Imperial transport ship and retrieving the kids' stolen TIE.

What should have only been three days in transit painfully stretched into five, their speed throttled by the transport's slow hyperdrive and the multiple short jumps she'd been forced to take as they drew closer to Mustafar to ensure there was no ambush waiting ahead.

Then the final day, the slowest day: monitoring incoming and outgoing ships and transmissions to determine the next window they could slip in.

And through it all, as the days piled up, she was kept awake at night by the knowledge that time hadn't stopped for Kanan. Somewhere, he was in pain. She had to hope he was in pain, because the alternative was unthinkable.

_We'll need to debrief him, Hera. The sooner, the better. Eighteen days is a long time to be in enemy hands._

Hera forced those dark thoughts aside and just watched the slow rise and fall of Kanan's breathing, letting herself be soothed by the steady rhythm. He was here. He was alive.

She forgot entirely about the 0800 alarm on her chrono she'd failed to switch off until its familiar beep pierced the room's quiet. She reached for it with a muffled curse, but Kanan was already moving. He launched himself into sitting position, flattening his back against the wall and looking around blearily before awareness chased away the tension in his shoulders.

He slumped, avoiding her gaze. "Sorry."

Hera wondered, darkly, how many times he had been woken from fitful sleep by an armed escort and marched off to another interrogation. Her eyes were drawn once more to his abdomen, now freed of the blanket. It looked even worse today, fresh bruises layered over old—a spectrum of color that painted a revealing timeline of torture.

She wordlessly reached for his shoulder to guide him back down to the mattress, settling comfortably beside him. There were still heavy circles under his eyes, and she traced them with her index finger, freshly angry with herself.

"I didn't mean to wake you," she said.

"Hey, none of that," Kanan said, reading her guilt easily. "Waking up to you is never a bad thing."

"Oh yeah?" She arched her brow at him. "So next time I wake you to deal with something Zeb and Ezra have gotten into...?"

"Okay, waking up to you is _almost_ never a bad thing."

Hera smirked. "Uh huh. That's what I thought."

His lips curved into a warm smile and her chest ached with the memory of waking up alone every night, wondering if she'd see that smile again. She pushed herself up onto an elbow and leaned forward. She'd meant to be tender, but the moment she kissed him, three weeks' worth of fear and longing coalesced into something like desperation. Her other hand curled behind his head, tangling into his hair and crushing his mouth to hers. 

Kanan went still with surprise, then tilted his chin for a better angle. He murmured her name between breaths, and she moved closer, greedy for the contact of his skin on hers, only half-mindful of his bruises until he flinched back with a hiss of pain. It pierced through that haze of desire, and she pulled away immediately, trying to bring her breathing back under control.

Beside her, Kanan was doing the same. She touched a hand to his cheek apologetically. "Are you okay?"

"I'm sore—everywhere, really," he admitted. "And I feel weak as a Loth-kitten."

He lifted an arm to demonstrate, and it shook with the effort, from his shoulder to his fingers. Hera frowned. He should still be sleeping. Would still be sleeping, if she'd been more careful. She hovered a hand over his bruised, almost swollen wrist. "What did they—?"

His expression blanked, and for a few seconds, she wasn't certain he would answer. "Electroshock," he said finally.

Hera's eyes widened in alarm. Even a few seconds of current through a body could wreak considerable damage, depending on the voltage. And anything strong enough to hurt was strong enough to harm.

"They were careful, once they worked out the initial kinks," Kanan said, flashing a humorless smile. "When it went too far, they took care of the damage."

That wasn't exactly comforting, but Hera supposed if anyone in the galaxy was an expert on handling electroshock injuries, it would be the entity that had perfected its use for torture.

Her eyes drifted again to the other bruises further down his body, and she seethed in helpless fury. She was a pilot, and she wasn't a stranger to working on or near live wires. She'd been shocked only a few times, but it had the dual effect of being both incredibly painful and impossible to brace for. Being subjected to that repeatedly, for more than just a second—she couldn't imagine.

Over the course of how many days? A week? Longer? The entire time?

Hera twined her fingers with his to still the shaking and lowered his arm back to the bed. When she glanced back at his face, she caught him staring at her with an odd, almost melancholy expression.

"I want to make something very clear," she said quietly. "I'm not leaving you behind. Ever. If they get their hands on you again, I'll find you. And I'll rescue you."

He looked away, blinking rapidly. "Hera, you can't—"

"I just did." 

She'd meant to reassure him, but he shook his head mutely. Hera hesitated, wanting to press the subject because it was important to her that he understood. Over these last weeks, she'd weighed eight years of devotion to a cause she held above everything—and discovered there was something she valued more. There was no universe where she piloted the _Ghost_ and ran missions for Fulcrum while Kanan screamed his throat raw in Imperial custody.

But Kanan was looking almost overwhelmed, so Hera took a breath—and changed the subject. "You've slept nearly twelve hours. Are you hungry?"

He met her eyes this time and quirked a half-smile. "Depends. Are you cooking? Because I might take my chances."

"No cooking involved. You'll have a ration bar and like it." Hera rose from bed and rummaged through a drawer until she found the stash she kept on hand out of sheer laziness. She grabbed the junaberry flavor he preferred and tossed the bar to him, followed by a canteen of water.

She'd expected a sarcastic reply, but Kanan just sat up, peeled back the packaging, and took a few distracted bites, followed by a healthy swig of water. No one tackled a ration bar without an ample supply of water.

"What terrible thing did you threaten the kids with?" he asked, gesturing in the direction of the door. "I haven't heard a peep."

Hera shrugged ruefully. The Ghost was home, but it was a noisy home, and she'd known her crew would be anxious to make sure Kanan was okay. To ensure he could rest the first night, she'd booted them off with the firm command to go make friends. "No threats. They bunked on one of the other ships."

"They did a good job yesterday. I still don't know how you pulled that off."

"Well, we had help." She hesitated a moment before concluding that she probably couldn't ruin his appetite any more than the bland ration bar. "Speaking of, our allies want to debrief you, once you feel up to it. They have a medic who can look you over."

Kanan's fist clenched briefly, but he nodded. "Okay."

He finished the rest of the bar, then crumpled the empty bar wrapper and tossed it into the waste bucket across the room. Hera blinked in surprise as he moved to stand, reaching for the change of clothing he kept in one of the compartments beneath her bed.

"Now?" she asked. She'd been under the impression that the rebellion would prefer sooner to later, but Kanan still looked exhausted. She switched tacks. "There's water for a shower."

He paused, sleeping pants half off, clearly tempted. Then, something changed. His gaze went distant and his lips flattened into the tense half-frown he wore when upset. "No. Maybe after. I just wanna get this over with."

It had taken a few years, but eventually she and Kanan had reached a point in their relationship where they both felt comfortable baring their doubts and fears. It also meant she could tell when Kanan was closing himself off. She stifled a frown of her own and joined him in dressing, considerably quicker, keeping half an eye on how he moved, whether he needed any help. 

She watched him pull one boot on, grunting lightly as it pressed against his battered shin. "Is there anything you want to talk about? Before we go?"

"I'd rather go over it just once," he said, grabbing the other boot.

She glanced at her chrono again. They, and the rest of the rebel ships, were scheduled to exit hyperspace in another ten minutes. There was a brief window of opportunity while they plotted the next jump for her to contact Fulcrum. After that, their next window to meet with Fulcrum and Leske—and, hopefully, a medic—wouldn't be for another six hours.

Hera needed to be in the cockpit to hail the other ships, but an irrational anxiety twisted in her stomach at just the thought of letting Kanan out of her sight.

"I'll let them know," she said. "Meet me at the airlock in five."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, updates on writing progress and the occasional meta can be found on my twitter, [@Syphrosine](https://twitter.com/Syphrosine). For everyone waiting on the next chapter of Chase the Sun, I appreciate the patience while I work through my post-finale feels here.


	3. Can't Find Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There wasn't really anywhere he could hide. That was the problem with nightmares. You carried them with you wherever you went._
> 
> (Contains spoilers for the Kanan comic book series by Marvel.)

The rebel corvette was considerably larger than _the Ghost_ , and the mere act of transferring from one to the other left Kanan lightheaded from the effort. Exhaustion, mental and physical, was beginning to feel like a permanent state of being, which worried him. Back on the _Sovereign_ he'd learned to expect it. He'd known there would be no rest until he gave them something they wanted, and the instant he gave in, even a little—

_Tell me, Jedi. What was her last word to you?_

His hands flexed by his side, nails digging into the fabric of his fingerless gloves and finding the crescent-shaped bruises beneath. He'd lost himself, just for a moment, swept up in that old nightmare. He'd answered, voice barely more than a whisper. 

It hadn't been an important question. Not one that would have betrayed Hera, the crew. Or the other rebels. But it was a question he once would have sworn he'd never answer, under any circumstances. And the Inquisitor had dragged the answer from him anyway.

He'd given that tightly guarded piece of himself away, and he still didn't know if that had been a slip, a momentary weakness, or if it had been the first ripple ahead of a flood. He remembered the heat radiating from his lightsaber as the Inquisitor leveled it inches from his face. The soft blue glow had expanded to fill his vision, a reminder of everything he'd run from and was still running from, an undercurrent of shame that never left him—

Defeat had settled over him, almost like an anesthetic. A glimmer of a future had stretched before him, one of violence and bitter despair, and the part of him that should have categorically rejected it was silent.

Kanan registered a warm pressure on his shoulder blade. Hera. They'd come to a halt midway through the corridor. He was walled up too tightly to sense her current level of concern, but her hand on him said enough.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Sorry."

"Kanan." Hera tugged his arm until he faced her. "You have nothing to apologize for."

His stomach dropped at the utter certainty in her eyes. _Does your precious crew know?_

"We don't have to do this now." Her voice was gentle, almost pleading.

"No, it's okay. I'm all right." He clenched his fist tighter, focusing on that note of pain until it crowded out everything else. "Let's go."

As they made their way through the ship's corridors, Kanan's attention kept straying to the uniformed crew—the colors didn't always match up just right, but it wasn't the deliberate customization you saw with mercs, where trappings of individuality were a point of pride. A few even bore insignia that spoke to at least some hierarchy. Knowing there were other rebel cells out there had been one thing, but there was an organization and cohesion here, almost military, that he hadn't expected.

When they finally reached the medbay, there were only two people awaiting them: a female human and a male Etti. Kanan didn't recognize either, and he immediately buried a flash of disappointment—and resentment—that Ahsoka wasn't among them. Fulcrum had known about him from the very beginning, and had clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

Forget secrecy. He would've given anything to know he wasn't the only Jedi left. He glanced at Hera, who had never so much as hinted that she'd known there were other survivors out there.

She greeted the rebels with an air of familiarity and handled the introductions. The short, dark-haired woman with a thin scar that traced a line from her lower lip to midway down her chin was Delpha Leske, intelligence specialist for their new allies and former ISB agent. An officer of some kind with these rebel forces, if her uniform was anything to go by. She offered him a polite nod, but he could see thoughts running at a steady clip beneath her assessing stare.

The Etti, blue skin on the darker end of the spectrum for his species, had half a head on even Kanan. Voroklin Uramo had served as a medic in the Republic Navy for two decades prior to his stint with the Twelfth Fleet during the Clone Wars. The Empire's xenophobia toward even Near-Humans had eventually driven him out of the newly formed Imperial Navy. 

Those years of experience were evident as they shook hands—his gaze swept from wrist to shoulder and then lower, as though Uramo could read the damage beneath his clothing based on body language alone. Kanan withdrew his hand warily.

"I'm afraid Ahsoka has something to take care of," Leske explained. "She will hopefully be able to join us later."

Convenient. Kanan hesitated. He could pinpoint her in the Force, if he were willing to drop his shields. Or able to. Truthfully, he wasn't certain he even could right now—his mind was a tightening knot of uneasiness and dread. That brief respite on _the Ghost_ , where fatigue and relief had drowned out senses tuned to danger, felt very distant.

Two beds had been cleared out of one corner of the medbay, and a small table set up there instead, with a chair on either side. There were indents and scratches in a roughly circular pattern in the center of the rectangular table that was suggestive of a Dejarik holoboard. Probably a re-purposed hologame table.

It was oddly fitting. He felt like a Dejarik player as Leske guided him to a chair and took a seat opposite him, taking measure of his opponent before the start of the match.

Leske pulled a portable holorecorder from her belt and set it down on the table that separated them. Kanan shifted uneasily in his chair. Being recorded changed the tenor of the meeting from a casual debriefing to something uncomfortably like a formal hearing. Not only that, but everything he said today, and how he said it, would be preserved for strangers to pick apart later.

He stole a glance at Hera, who also looked surprised.

The rebel officer seemed to pick up on his discomfort. She'd been fiddling with the recorder settings, but she paused. "Just to be clear, this is a debriefing, nothing more. My questions are just that: questions. You're not obligated to answer." She met his eyes. "That said, you're the first prisoner we've recovered from the Empire. Any intel you can provide would be incredibly helpful."

She waited for him to nod, then she thumbed the device on, its glow bathing the room in soft blue-white light. For a second, it was the pale light of his lightsaber, inches from his face, as the Inquisitor stared him down. He blinked, and the table was back. 

Leske glanced to their left, and Kanan followed her gaze. Hera stood only a few paces back, arms crossed as she returned the stare. Her expression softened when she met Kanan's eyes, and he could read the unspoken message: she wasn't going to let him face this alone.

It should have been comforting. Maybe it was, a little, but a twist of anxiety in his chest dragged his gaze back to the holorecorder at the center of the table. He already felt raw and exposed, and they hadn't even started yet.

Leske turned her attention back to him. "We need as complete an understanding as possible of what the Empire wanted from you. That may necessitate unpleasant questions, but it's important. An interrogation is never one-sided—what they asked will tell us a lot about what they know."

So, revisit every last inch of that nightmare and hold nothing back. He breathed in, and exhaled slowly, feeling immeasurably tired already. "Yeah, I get it."

"Good." Leske's eyes narrowed slightly, a calculating edge to them that did little to calm his nerves. "Let's start from the beginning, with your capture three weeks ago."

His breath froze in his lungs. "Three weeks ago?" he said faintly.

"Nineteen days, to be precise." Leske exchanged a glance with the medic, before returning her stare to him. "What did it feel like to you?"

"I—don't know, exactly." He swallowed tightly, hyperaware of the increased scrutiny from everyone in the room, Hera included. "They did their best to keep me awake and off balance."

Leske tilted her head. "How?"

"Just about any way you could think of." He gave a tiny shrug. "Messed with the cell lighting and temperature. Drugs. They sedated me, sometimes—I think for medical treatment. Varied the mealtimes. Personal grooming." 

He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw, remembering waking up each day disconcerted at the lack of beard growth. His skin crawled even now at the thought of someone _working_ on him, while he lay unconscious. He flinched away from those blank patches in his memory, mustering up a humorless smile instead. "It was a full service detention facility, I guess."

"How long did it feel like?" Leske repeated.

Each time he woke, he'd ached a little more, felt a little less _himself_ , but everything else had remained static, repetitive. The routine varied, but began and ended the same: with him utterly spent. The Imperials had somehow perfected the art of keeping a prisoner off balance while maintaining the illusion that time hung suspended.

Kanan folded his arms across his chest, catching his bottom lip between his teeth as he tried to slice that blur into identifiable segments of time. "I don't know. Ten days? More than a week. Less than two."

Leske and the medic shared another significant look. He didn't need to be an intelligence specialist to know how bad that sounded. 

"Please, continue. Your capture?"

Kanan licked his lips and then closed his eyes. A calm settled over him as he turned his thoughts back to that day. His capture had actually been the last time he'd felt any measure of peace. 

"It was a trap, from the very beginning," he said, remembering the wail of alarms that had hit him like a gut punch. "I don't know how they knew we'd be there. We were almost spotted by a probe droid when scouting the transmission tower. Maybe there was another one I missed."

"There was no way we could have known."

His eyes opened a sliver at Hera's voice, just in time to see Leske shake her head at Hera. He let them fall shut again. No interruptions. Casual debriefing. Right.

"They attacked soon after we arrived," he continued after a moment. "Three patrol transports. Two armored ground transports. Zeb took down one of the patrol transports, but we were easily outnumbered. I changed the rendezvous, sent the team to the top of the tower."

"You didn't go with them."

Kanan shook his head. "I thought I could buy some time." 

The entry to the tower had been the perfect chokepoint—he'd felt confident he could hold the stormtroopers there until Hera was in place. Right up until he'd sensed that unpleasant, too-familiar shiver in the Force. His hand strayed to his hip, finding the reassuring weight of his lightsaber, still assembled from yesterday's fight.

"When the Inquisitor landed," he said, "I knew I wasn't getting away. So I sealed the door with my lightsaber."

"They offered you a chance to surrender?"

He made a noise that straddled the line between laugh and sigh. "Yeah. I strung them along until Hera got there. After the Inquisitor disarmed me…" He offered a small shrug and opened his eyes to the light of the holorecorder. "They cuffed me and secured the tower until Tarkin arrived."

He'd swung wildly between calm and dread from the moment the Inquisitor took his lightsaber and placed him in binders. Calm, because he'd faced something that had haunted his nightmares for years—the Empire finally catching up to him, fully aware of his secret—and made an uneasy peace with it. If it meant his crew, his family, would be safe, he would barter his freedom for theirs every time.

Dread, because he'd witnessed firsthand what had been done to Master Luminara, and he'd been keenly aware that it was probably the best outcome he could hope for. He knew the Empire wasn't finding Force-sensitives in a vacuum for their Inquisition—some of them had once been Jedi.

"Governor Tarkin came to collect you personally?" Leske asked, raising an eyebrow. 

That the Grand Moff of the Outer Rims had decided to carve time out of his schedule to personally deal with them had come as a shock to him too. He remembered that gray-blue stare, simultaneously dismissive and intrigued, and the sobering realization that he and the crew were playing a game with entirely different stakes now.

_You do not know what it takes to win a war, but I do._

"We'd managed to take out all their air transport," he said. "And he wanted to make a point."

"The communications tower."

Listening to Ezra's speech, and watching the consternation play across Tarkin's face, he'd experienced a strange moment of clarity. Like a layer had been pulled back, and he suddenly could see the thousands of tiny gears that collectively powered the Empire—and how fragile they were. Lothal was just one of those tiny cogs in the Imperial machine, but it touched many others, and they'd just tossed a very large wrench into it.

"Ezra's transmission pissed him off," he said, feeling a glow of remembered pride for his padawan. "After that, they took me back to the capital for transport to Tarkin's flagship."

Those memories were less pleasant. He'd spent the ride hyperaware of the Inquisitor sitting across from him, watching him with the patience of a man who knew he would have all the time in the world to demonstrate to Kanan just how powerless he was. Until then, the longest he'd been in the Inquisitor's presence had been—the Spire, probably.

_"Caleb Dume, alias Kanan Jarrus. Former Jedi padawan under the tutelage of Master Depa Billaba, deceased." The Inquisitor bared his pointed teeth in a predatory smile. "Quite possibly the last of your fallen Order. You're my first Jedi in nearly five years."_

Leske cleared her throat. "And then?"

Kanan's smile felt anything but—sharp, jagged. "And then the fun started."

His earlier calm had devolved into nervous tension by the time they'd reached the star destroyer. When his stormtrooper escort, headed by Kallus, had marched him onto Tarkin's flagship, it had felt like the door of a prison cell sealing shut. On Lothal, as ill-advised as it might have been, a rescue attempt would've at least stood a chance.

Against a star destroyer, primed and ready for any such attempts…he'd closed his eyes, and silently willed Hera to understand. Then a blaster rifle had jabbed into his back. _Move along, rebel._

"First stop on the _Sovereign_ was the medbay." He rubbed his upper arm, recalling the ache that grew with each successive jab of a needle. "They took measurements, readings. Updated their—existing records." 

Ancient records, of a boy who didn't exist anymore except as an entry in some highly classified database recovered from the Jedi Temple. His gaze shifted to the holorecorder, then back up to Leske, who exhibited a hint of a frown before her expression smoothed over. 

Did the rebels even know? He'd recognized Ahsoka because every youngling knew firsthand about the Temple bombing, the rumors of her involvement, and her subsequent resignation from the Order. But to her, he would have been one face among thousands at the Temple. Even Hera didn't know that name.

Leske glanced at Uramo briefly, then prompted, "Existing records?"

"I'm a Jedi. They have records." _Tell me, Jedi…_ He swallowed and looked away, hands curling into fists in his lap. "Detailed records."

Leske nodded, then beckoned the medic over. "Before we continue, I'd like Voroklin to do a scan. Would you please stand?"

Kanan obeyed after a beat, looking between them uneasily as he tried to figure out what might have prompted the sudden interest in his health.

Uramo waved a thin silver rod over him, starting at the crown of his head. He moved it lower, gliding over one arm, then the other. The scanner had hardly made it past his shoulder when it began to emit a low beep and flash yellow.

"Tracker," the medic said curtly. 

Kanan froze, stomach lurching as he clutched at his arm. Hera made an abortive move toward him, but Leske held up a hand, mouth tense as she stared at the medic. "How bad?"

Uramo glanced at the flat display on one side of the scanner. "It's a Sensidor biotransmitter, military grade. I recognize the model. Short range—a few thousand kilometers at most. Imps could track him if we touch down on a planet with a receiver, but we're safe for now."

"Get it out of me," Kanan said thinly. 

Logically, he knew that the tracker would likely have been caught after the briefing when they conducted his physical, but all he could think about was landing on an Imperial-controlled planet, unaware that his mere presence would betray his crew, the other rebels—

His grip tightened painfully around his arm as he wondered what else they might have done while he was unconscious.

"We're in no danger now," Uramo said, voice low and soothing as he looked to Leske for guidance. "I'll need to sedate you, which means we would have to continue the debriefing later."

Kanan stared at him, skin crawling at the choice between prolonging the debriefing or waiting until the end.

No. He rolled his sleeve up and reached inward, tuning his focus until that tiny mass of foreign material, a niggling sense of otherness, swam into awareness. There was someone moving in the periphery of his vision, but he kept his concentration on the tracker. He raised his hand a few inches from his arm, braced himself, and _pulled_.

A spike of pain lanced through his arm, and then something small hit his palm. He closed his fist around the bloody tracker, feeling a warmth drip down his arm. Kanan moved his fist over the table and dropped it on the surface, where it landed with a wet clatter, rolling to a stop beside the holorecorder. 

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and retook his seat, head spinning with a dizzying mix of relief and adrenaline. 

Leske, who had stumbled to her feet at some point, stared at him for several long seconds before rejoining him. Meanwhile, Uramo swabbed at the exit wound, muttering something under his breath about Kanan definitely being a Jedi, before retreating to the back of the medbay.

Leske's hand tracked over the table, as though reaching for an absent datapad, before she seemed to realize what she was doing. Instead, she picked up the tracker and turned it over in her hand. "All high value prisoners are tagged, though it's odd that they opted for a short range tracker. They likely inserted it while you were processed. They tested several drugs on you at the time, correct?"

"I—yeah, I guess." That time was fuzzy, just scattered flashes of memory: white walls, white ceiling, white-armored troopers holding him down. "I was there a while. I don't really remember how long. They'd try one, and sometimes it would knock me out. They'd bring me around, wait a bit, then try another."

"Building a reaction profile," Leske said with a nod. "They were determining which drugs you responded to best, and how quickly and effectively various sedatives worked. It varies even between individuals of a similar size and weight within a single species. They would have calibrated the interrogation droid using that data."

Her matter-of-fact tone was more than a little disconcerting. She'd introduced herself as former ISB, and now he was wondering just how former. "You're pretty familiar with their methods."

When she met his eyes, there was a brief flicker of something before that dispassionate calm reasserted itself. "That's my job," she said after a moment. "What happened once you were processed?"

"They took me to a holding cell. Some time after that, I had my first date with the interrogation droid." Kanan's hand went to his arm again, still stinging from the impromptu Force-aided surgery. He knew if he closed his eyes, he'd be in that cell, with the hovering sphere extending a needle to his arm. "It was—I'd been trained. But it was still—difficult."

Mind probes primarily relied on a cocktail of drugs to put the target in a suggestible state of mind while simultaneous lowering their inhibitions to the point where they could no longer filter their responses. It was a technique that Jedi, taught mental discipline nearly from birth, were almost uniquely suited to resist. 

Kanan didn't even know how to begin describing the experience. Memory and thought, shifting and slipping—maintaining his focus had been like trying to run across the surface of a rockslide. At one point, in a panic, he'd retreated into that part of him that was still Caleb. Caleb, dead so many years, didn't know anything about life outside of the Jedi. The polar opposite of Kanan, who for the longest time had known nothing but.

But eventually, he'd found his sense of balance and the shifting ground beneath his feet had become a wave to ride. Instead of an uncontrolled descent he could see the dangerous turns and dips in time to correct course and evade.

"Who conducted the interrogation?"

"Agent Kallus, the ISB agent-in-charge on Lothal." Ordinarily, being questioned by the ISB would have been terrifying enough. But Tarkin's presence elsewhere on the ship—and the threatening shadow of the Inquisitor's—had loomed over those interrogations, a constant reminder that at any moment, his situation had the potential to get much worse. 

"He asked the kind of questions you'd expect," Kanan continued, recalling the agent's rising frustration at his continued resistance. "What else were we planning. How many of us were there. Where were the others hiding. That sort of thing."

"Nothing about the greater rebellion?"

"No." It had surprised him, a little. "He was focused on Lothal, our actions there."

Leske leaned forward slightly, steepling her fingers. "How did you respond?"

Kanan forced his shoulders to relax. "I didn't tell him anything."

"Are you certain?" Leske asked, voice neutral. "It is very difficult for a subject to remain coherent throughout the entirety of a mind probe."

"I'm sure," he said, just barely managing to bite back a more hostile response. Now was not the time to get defensive. "It even got…easier, in later sessions."

She nodded slowly, as though filing that away. "The _Sovereign_ remained in orbit above Lothal for seven days after your capture before departing for Mustafar. What can you tell me about that time?"

Kanan rubbed at his jaw, daunted by the near-impossibility of sorting out the time between his arrival on the ship and Tarkin's decision to take him to Mustafar. "To be honest, it was a lot of the same. Kallus handled the interrogations the first few days. Mostly the same questions, but he did question me on a few specific missions we'd carried out."

"Lothal missions, or others?"

"Mostly Lothal. He was particularly interested in our rescue of Tseebo. He also wanted to know where we'd obtained our intel about the convoy for the kyber crystal—I think he'd managed to connect it to Ezra's infiltration of the academy on Lothal."

"Did he ask you about anyone in particular?" Leske asked sharply. "Specific names?"

Kanan frowned, trying to recall. "I think so, yeah. I don't remember them, but I didn't recognize any."

She leaned forward. "None of them? It could be important."

He searched that haze for anything to give her. "Nopol? Norok? Something like that." He shifted in his seat, frustrated with himself for not paying closer attention. "There were others. I could—" He hesitated, battling an instinctive reluctance. "I could try meditating on it later."

"That would be helpful, thank you," Leske said. "Did he reference anything your cell wasn't responsible for?"

He nodded, and gave details on the incidents he remembered Kallus asking about. A few he'd recognized as jobs that fit Vizago's style, but there were others. When he was finished, he found himself wishing for a glass of water. His throat, still raw, felt dry. 

"Eventually, Tarkin became impatient. He personally observed the next session, though he didn't ask any questions himself." _If he is the Jedi he claims to be…_ Kanan wasn't even sure what he was, anymore. "He seemed skeptical that I could be a Jedi, despite the Inquisitor's assurances—"

"The Inquisitor was present?" Leske asked, eyes suddenly intent on his.

Kanan blinked. "Yeah, he joined midway through. He suggested—alternative tactics, since I'm a Jedi."

He noticed her gaze flick from his arm to the tracker on the table. "Alternative tactics?"

"Pain," he said flatly. 

Lots of pain. Enough that he could feel its echoes even now, could recreate it in his mind with crystalline clarity, in all its sharpness. He already knew, despite last night's slumber, that he would be feeling it in his sleep for a long time. And that was probably one of the kinder things he'd dream about.

Leske waited patiently for him to elaborate, which he did, after a glance at Hera. He was startled to find that he'd nearly forgotten she was here, so locked in on his memories of the _Sovereign_ and the rebel officer sitting across from him.

"He started with a few mind tricks." He paused, trying to find a way to describe them to someone without knowledge of the Force and all the things one Force user could do to another. "Some of it was just a brute force assault: him trying to blast through my shields. Other times, he tried confusing me with false visions. Sometimes it was a combination of the two."

Leske nodded, her expression difficult to read. "You resisted?"

_I see you, growing more and more frustrated._ What followed hadn't been pleasant, but the flash of irritation on the Inquisitor's face had been worth it. 

He offered a half-shrug. "I'm actually pretty good at that."

Clamping off the raw, frayed ends of his broken training bond so he could think through the pain. Walling himself off from the death throes of other Jedi as they fell. Threading lies with the weight of the Force behind them just to escape, to survive. Shielding himself so thoroughly from any other Force user, once it became clear that the Empire was employing other Force-sensitives to hunt down Jedi, that he could hardly find himself. Locking away Caleb, every last trace of who he used to be—

Yeah. He was pretty good at that kind of thing. Brute force would have never been the way the Inquisitor broke him. He was lucky the Inquisitor hadn't realized that until those final days.

_Tell me, Jedi— **(Take this holocron.)** —what was her last word to you?_

Kanan inhaled sharply as the world swung back into view. "I—" He flailed for the dangling threads of their conversation. Tactics. "That didn't work, so the Inquisitor decided to give physical pain a try."

_Fire tearing through his nerves with the force of a thousand tiny explosions, until the current died, and he went limp, only the metal of his restraints holding him upright on the interrogation slab. His breaths came fast, shuddering, through a throat raw from screaming._

_Between sweat-soaked blinks, the Inquisitor appeared in front of him, hands clasped behind his back as he studied Kanan. "So stubborn."_

"Physical pain?" Leske asked, from very far away.

Kanan slowed his breathing, but his heart still raced. Phantom pain ghosted across and beneath his skin, tingling and hauntingly familiar. He folded his arms against the sensation, willing the vivid edges of that memory to finish fading.

"Electroshock." He uncurled his fists, forcing them flat on his thighs, and flashed a brittle smile at Leske. "It was about as fun as you'd imagine."

She glanced away, looking vaguely discomfited, and he felt a flicker of vindication. "What did the Inquisitor want to know?"

"Same as Kallus. Where the crew might have gone, rendezvous locations." That had changed after the ship left Lothal. "He started asking about the larger rebellion, Fulcrum in particular, once we made it to Mustafar."

"Anything specific? Names? Places?"

"No." It could have been that the Inquisitor hadn't wanted to tip his hand, but Kanan didn't think so. "He wanted to know about other cells, who might be leading them. He knew Fulcrum's code name, but he never used gender pronouns."

Leske digested that a moment, then turned to Hera. "When did your crew intercept the courier droid, on Lothal?"

"A few hours before Tarkin left for Mustafar," Hera said promptly, eyes on Kanan as she spoke. He read her disquiet that the margin between rescuing him and never finding out where the Empire had taken him had been that close. "You think he suspected Fulcrum was responsible?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he believed Kanan would be more willing to betray the rebellion as an organization, rather than your crew."

"I didn't betray either," he gritted out, a flush of anger glowing hot in his chest. He'd endured hours of agony for refusing to do just that.

_Not the rebellion. Or the crew. But yourself?_

_**Run.**_

Just as quickly, that anger vanished, leaving a hollowness behind.

"I believe you," Leske said delicately. "I wasn't suggesting otherwise. But they changed tactics for a reason." Her fingers drummed on the table as she thought. "For a star destroyer, Lothal to Mustafar is at most a two day journey. You remained in orbit the entire time?"

Kanan gave a terse nod, able to sense where the conversation was heading.

"Mustafar is a long way to travel, if they were only going to continue interrogating you on-ship. There are many locations in the Core, more secure, where they could have gone." Leske's fingers stilled. "I understand there is a certain significance to Mustafar for you, as a Jedi."

Kanan resisted the impulse to tense up, crossing his arms instead and leaning back in his seat. "If you've got something to ask, ask."

"The Imperial Inquisition is, as far as we're aware, composed entirely of Force users. Did the Inquisitor offer to spare you in return for your services?"

Kanan returned her stare. "No."

There had been hints, implications, but the Inquisitor had never presented Kanan with an outright choice. Perhaps because he'd already known what the answer would be. Kanan had been left instead with the vague impression that once Tarkin was through with him, Mustafar would get what was left. And he'd never really allowed his thoughts to travel much further down that path.

"He didn't offer? Or you didn't accept?" she asked, an odd note in her voice that made him bristle in his seat.

"Is this a hearing or a debriefing?" he snapped. "Do I need character witnesses? I'm not part of your rebellion, and I'm not one of your soldiers. I'm here because you helped save our asses, and Hera trusts you."

Hera shifted. "Kanan—"

"I'm asking these questions for two reasons," Leske said, maddeningly calm. "First, to determine if we can continue to trust you—" 

"Bullshit," he interrupted, slamming his hand down on the table. "You don't introduce me to Fulcrum, or identify Senator Organa as part of your rebellion, if you think I'm going to betray you the first chance I get."

A trace of consternation showed on Leske's face. "That wasn't my call. I advised waiting. But more importantly, this is a rare opportunity to learn what the Empire knows about us, what its intentions are. The Inquisition in particular has become increasingly problematic for our operatives over the past year, and the truth is, we know very little about them, other than their ability to use the Force. How they are trained, how they recruit, their primary objective—we don't know. What little we do know traces back to Mustafar."

_Do you know why you're here, Jedi?_

Kanan shrank back from that memory. "I don't know what else I can tell you. I've told you everything he wanted to know about the rebellion."

"He never expressed any interest in you, personally?"

"Not unless electroshock was his idea of foreplay," he said, deliberately obtuse. When it failed to elicit any reaction from Leske, he gave a tense shrug. "He already knew everything he needed to. The rest was just…"

Raking at old scars until he found one that bled.

For once, Leske didn't press the issue. "According to Ezra, during your rescue, he found you alone in an interrogation room."

That was the opening to a line of questioning that he immediately knew was going nowhere good, but then Ezra's name sunk in, and Kanan glanced sharply at Hera, feeling a stab of betrayal. "You let them put Ezra through this?"

She took a half-step toward him, frowning. "Kanan, it wasn't—it was just a few questions."

Kanan shook his head. "He's not one of their operatives or soldiers or whatever they are, Hera. He's _fifteen_ —"

"Jedi younger than that served as commanders during the Clone Wars," Leske pointed out. "Yourself included, I assume."

_**I believe the Jedi Order made a crucial error…** _

_Heat from the crackling fire warm on his face as he studied the holocron, turning it over in his hands, tracing the patterns on each side of the cube in wonder._

Kanan's feet moved of their own accord, and between one blink and the next, he was standing. There was a rushing noise in his ears to accompany the rapid pounding of his heart, and he clenched his fists to still the trembling in his hands. He fought his breathing back under control, and the gray at the edges of his vision receded slightly.

"We're done," he managed, throat gone completely dry. "Ezra showed up, I killed the Inquisitor, we escaped. End of story."

He felt the medic's hand on his shoulder, and he shoved it off, making a beeline for the door as nausea twisted in his stomach. He heard Hera saying something to the two rebels as the door closed behind him, but he remained focused on his destination.

When Kanan finally located a bathroom, he knelt down, barely registering the protests of his bruised shins, and was promptly sick.

There wasn't much in his stomach, so it didn't take very long, and afterwards, he closed the lid of the toilet and flung an arm over it, letting his forehead rest against the cool, metal surface. He could barely swallow past the lump in his throat, and his chest ached from the effort of holding back pain both ancient and fresh. He felt too drained to move, but his thoughts circled rapidly, because if he stopped for even an instant, that careful orbit would decay, and he'd spiral back to—

He didn't know where. There were a lot of nightmares dotting the landscape of his mind, dark singularities that waited patiently for the tiniest slip. Kanan didn't know what it said about him that he clung tightly to the smell of ozone in his nostrils and the memory of current arching through his limbs.

But even that failed to drown out the rest. His mind hadn't been a quiet place for well over a decade, even when he'd done his level best to lose himself in drink.

There was a gentle rapping at the door, and Hera's worry spilled through. "Kanan."

He didn't trust his voice, so he didn't say anything. Eventually, there was the beep of the lock override being entered, and the door slid open. Hera settled behind him, her hand a hesitant pressure in the middle of his back, moving in slow, soothing circles.

"Let's get back to _the Ghost_ ," she said quietly, as though afraid to spook him.

That dimly lit cell on the _Sovereign_ , this tiny bathroom, the familiar confines of _the Ghost_ —it didn't matter. There wasn't really anywhere he could hide. That was the problem with nightmares. You carried them with you wherever you went. 

_A split second of pure terror at the sound of Ezra's scream, that sickening realization that he was too late. Time suspended in an instant of perfect, cruel clarity where every branch of decision laid itself flat for scrutiny. If he had dodged here, struck there, leapt then—_

_**(Caleb, run!)** _

"Kanan."

Kanan clung to Hera's voice like an anchor, concentrating, with all his remaining energy, on her hand, curled into the fabric of his shirt. The hard floor beneath his legs. The quiet hiss of the ship's air filtration, cool on the back of his neck.

Gradually, the press of memory subsided, leaving him with an ache in his chest and a dampness where he'd buried his face into the crook of his arm.

Hera's fingers stroked over his hair. "Take as long as you need."

Kanan shook his head mutely. He felt drained in a way that no length of time would help. With grim determination, he caught the edge of the sink with one hand and levered himself up.

He could do this. He'd been doing this his entire life. If there was one thing in the galaxy Kanan Jarrus knew how to do, it was survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is loved and appreciated. You can also find me on Twitter [@Syphrosine](https://twitter.com/Syphrosine) or now on Tumblr, [same handle](http://syphrosine.tumblr.com).


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